Hilla obtained her PhD at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Technion in 2003. She held a post-doctoral research associate position at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University, USA, for two years. In 2007, she joined the Rabin Desalination Laboratory at the Technion, where she is currently a senior research associate.

Hilla has over 20 years of diverse experience in academic and applied research. Her research interests include membrane science and technology, water and wastewater treatment, desalination technologies, and electrochemistry. 

She published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals (the current H-index at Google Scholar is 27) and six book chapters.

Hilla supervises and mentors Israeli and international graduate students. She served as a lecturer in undergraduate courses on water chemistry and treatment technologies for water, wastewater, and industrial wastewater. Hilla also guest-lectured in graduate courses on physical/chemical processes in environmental engineering.